Bataan Death March Survivor Lester Tenney Reclaims His Judaism

Being bar mitzvahed circled the old sergeant back to the heritage he concealed from his Japanese captors more than six decades ago after seeing other Jews beaten by guards who sympathized with the Nazis. It is a faith he never really reembraced until now.

Tenney was 21 in April 1942 when approximately 12,000 U.S. soldiers and 63,000 Filipino soldiers surrendered on the Philippines’ Bataan Peninsula. The next month, Allied forces also surrendered the Filipino island of Corregidor.